This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Industry Seeks To Ease Life-Limited Parts Documentation Burden

The industry has created such complicated documentation requirements for life-limited parts (LLP) that many players are feeling adverse impacts.

These requirements, which vary from customer to customer, “are very counterproductive, time-consuming and cause both an increase in cost, decrease in asset values and loss of marketability and trade,” says International Aircraft Associates President Mitch Weinberg.

During a conference session at Aviation Week Network’s MRO Americas, panelists and session participants agreed that an industry standard for LLP documentation would help eliminate wasted time and money that is having an impact on airlines, MROs, lessors and parts distributors.

For instance, SR Technics has a dedicated team that checks documentation for all incoming material to make sure it meets the MRO’s standards, as well as customers’ documentation standards. Because there is so much paperwork and so much variation for what is required, “this creates a lot of nonvalue added work,” says Fritz Beiner, SR Technics vice president-engine procurement.

Part of the problem is that many material customers cannot substantiate why they have those requirements, such as an on-off log LLP sheet, says Tony Spaulding, United Airlines’ managing director-MRO business development. “This has led the industry to load up paperwork without knowing what is there or why—and value ‘more is better.’”

Part of the confusion could also be from some financial contracts restricting “value impairment” activities, without defining what that means, says Weinberg.

Given all this ambiguity, which is not regulatory-driven, having an industry standard could streamline the process for all.

During the conference session, Spaulding and others complimented the industry initiative to eliminate non-incident statements. The International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Aircraft Leasing and Advisory Group created a template for standardizing back-to-birth traceability of life-limited parts. IATA has not yet published it but welcomes feedback on what is included in that template so far. Contact Chris Markou, IATA’s head of operational cost management flight operations at [email protected] to receive the working draft for comment.